1. Technical Field
The invention generally relates to the field of electronic books and, more particularly, to systems and methods for creating and distributing customized books via electronic devices.
2. Background Information
Even as widespread use of the Web reaches its twentieth anniversary, there has been little change in how people make use of textbooks. Students still fill their backpacks with as many of the five-pound books as will fit, and the impact of such paper-based learning is felt not only in students' backs, but in the carbon footprint of all of the infrastructure required to supply, use and dispose of such materials. A change of just a few pages in a textbook may make it obsolete and call for a new version to be printed; students carry not just this week's chapters with them everywhere, but last month's and next month's chapters as well.
Although some attempts have been made to transform study material from Gutenberg's era to the digital era, some of the advantages of using paper books for study purposes have not been replicated. Students from time immemorial have used their texts in different ways. Some highlight portions of particular interest; others place notes in the margins to keep track of clarifications of difficult concepts. Some used textbooks are more useful than new ones because they naturally fall open to the most important pages after repeated use, or because particularly important pages or sections are more dog-eared than others. Electronic reading devices have not to date provided some of these subtle yet important features that help students learn from their texts most efficiently.
Likewise, instructors often would like to teach from textbooks in ways that have not traditionally been available to them. Since the advent of photocopying, professors have sometimes generated course packs for their students by copying portions of textbooks, articles, and other materials into customized booklets. However, this conventional solution presents a variety of problems ranging from copyright clearance to wasteful formats that use more paper than needed (for instance, where an article finishes at the top of a new page). In addition, lack of indexes, tables of contents, and uniform formatting have often made such course packs somewhat difficult for students to use.
It would be advantageous to provide improved mechanisms for students to obtain, read, study from and otherwise use textbook content with some of the tablet, laptop and other electronic devices that are now entering widespread use.